After a short hiatus, the Amarok team is happy to announce that the Amarok Insider is back. This time we have prepared many interesting bits for you, straight from the developers. We also give you an exclusive sneak preview for the upcoming Amarok 2.3. Enjoy an insider look into Amarok development!

Amarok 2.3! What's New

Newly redesigned Toolbar. When this is detached, you'll have a very streamlined Amarok at your fingertips, in a sliver of screen space. See it live: New Toolbar in Action

New and much simpler Local Collection browser. The old browser, while having many features, was never really an integrated part of Amarok, neither in terms of look and feel or actual code. In the "Saved Playlists" and Podcast categories you'll find the new "merged view" button just like in "Local Collection."

When a new source of playlists or podcasts becomes available, Amarok will switch off merged view and show a new collapsible list of your new listening sources.

You can drag and drop playlists, podcasts and whole podcast channels to add them to the device or service.

Amarok on a Small Screen. Some folks run Amarok full screen, but how about those of us on laptops, netbooks, and even smartphones? We need a smaller screen footprint. It turns out that one can already run Amarok tabbed! Until recently, the Amarok layout was fixed, but it is now much more configurable. You might have noticed that if you unselect Lock Layout (View > Lock/Unlock Layout), you can close or move any of the panels, and the toolbar. Here is a look at what it looks like with the panes stacked and tabbed: Amarok Forum post with screenshots.

Screenshots

Now that we have a beautiful new toolbar, how about some screenshots? Our website needs 2.2.2 and later, and you are welcome to add to the Forum thread: Amarok Screenshots. Winners will be featured not only on the website, but here in Amarok Insider.